Neuroscientist Nicole Avena, who specializes in diet and addiction, tells Tremonti that research going back 15 years shows how the brain reacts when a person consumes an excessive amount of sugar.

“There’s activation in areas of the brain that are similar to what you see with an addiction to a drug abuse.”

It also means sugar withdrawal can have similar symptoms to nicotine or morphine withdrawal such as irritability, tremors and shakes.

Avena says addiction treatment follows different approaches that work for different people but suggests using a harm reduction model: cutting out the problematic food can help control intake over time and slowly reduce it.